Talent
Set employee goals and track progress
Assign goals with a target date, priority and weight, record progress until the goal completes, and link goals to a KPI so the KPI's value follows them.
3 min readLast updated
In this article
Goals are the individual objectives you agree with each employee: finish a project, cut an error rate, complete a course. Each goal has a target date, a priority and a weight, and moves from not started to completed as progress is recorded. Linking a goal to a KPI lets the KPI's value follow the goals behind it.
Before you start
To link goals to a KPI, create the KPI first under KPIs and set its calculation method to automatic.
Create a goal
Open People › Talent › Goals and select New Goal.
Choose the Employee and enter the goal's title under Goal.
Pick the Type (individual, team, departmental or organizational), the Priority and the Category (performance, development, behavioural or project).
Set the Target Date.
Optionally choose a Linked KPI. The list shows that employee's KPIs and the company-wide ones; another employee's KPI cannot be linked.
Enter a Target Value if the goal is measured in numbers, and its Weight % compared with the employee's other goals.
Add a Description and select Save.
A new goal starts as Not Started. When you edit a goal you can also set its Status, for example At risk or Cancelled.
Record progress
Open the goal's Actions menu and select Update Progress.
Enter the Progress as a percentage from 0 to 100.
Optionally enter the Current Value, the latest reading in the goal's unit.
Select Save.
Below 100% the goal shows In Progress. Reaching 100% completes the goal and stamps the completion date automatically.
Employees can also record progress on their own goals from the My performance page of the self-service portal. There they enter the current value, and the system works out the percentage as the current value divided by the target value, capped at 100%.
Reopen a completed or cancelled goal
A completed or cancelled goal is closed: Update Progress is unavailable on it, so its final figure stays as it was.
Open the goal's Actions menu and select Reopen goal.
Confirm. The goal returns to In Progress and its completion date is cleared, so progress can be recorded again.
How a goal feeds its KPI
When the linked KPI uses the automatic calculation method, the system recalculates the KPI every time a linked goal is created, updated, reopened or deleted:
The KPI's current value becomes the weighted average of the current values of its linked goals, using each goal's Weight %.
A goal without a weight counts with a weight of 1. A goal without a current value is left out, so an unmeasured goal does not pull the KPI down.
The KPI's achievement percentage is then its current value divided by its target value.
Common questions
Why is Update Progress greyed out? The goal is completed or cancelled. Reopen it first.
Does deleting a goal change the KPI? Yes. The KPI is recalculated without that goal.